Jack Barbour came home in an unusually cheerful mood tonight, bounded up the steps to the kitchen, greeted his wife and six small daughters with a lusty hug and kiss. Now a few minutes whistling cheerfully, he ducks across the hedge to the family home next door. His jaunty air brings a flickering smile to the dour face of Mrs Kettleman, before he hurries through the kitchen and on into the library where Fanny is sitting alone reading the newspaper.